[John James Jacoby]

bbPress and WordPress are not cross aware of role changes.

So, if you change a WordPress role, the bbPress role is not changed;

If you change the bbPress role, the WordPress role is not changed.

I believe that this is is probably the way that most people would want it to be, although it would make sense eventually (once these can be more tightly integrated) to have the option of syncing them up.